Benedetto XVI - Inglese

World Briefing | Europe: Italy: Bishops Warn Lawmakers Over Gay Rights Bill

[NYT - Europe]

A directive by Italian bishops telling Roman Catholic politicians that they have a moral duty to vote against gay rights legislation has prompted fresh charges of Vatican meddling in parliamentary affairs. The note, issued by the Italian Bishops Conference, comes as Parliament is considering a bill introduced by Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s center-left coalition that would guarantee rights in areas like inheritance and health care to homosexual and heterosexual unmarried couples. “Catholics have been warned,” the conservative newspaper Il Tempo said in a headline. Some Catholic and centrist politicians welcomed the directive as food for thought, but the interior minister, Giuliano Amato, accused the bishops of trying to weaken the government, the BBC reported. “This is something that happens in societies we criticize as Islamized,” he said. A leftist senator, Maria Luisa Boccia, said: “This continuous, daily interference by the church in Parliament’s activity is intolerable. What’s next, excommunication?”.